Pier Closing Time showcased Michael Bennett’s 1979 photographic journey through North Wales. Mournful of a lost world, always ironic, this is a bitter-sweet portrait of seaside resorts in and out of season.
Llandudno ©Michael Bennett 1979
In 1979, The Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno was due to re-open after decades of closure. Its recently-appointed director Hugh Adams commissioned a photographic project from photographer Michael Bennett, with the intention of capturing the atmosphere of North Wales coastal resorts in winter.
With a working title of Anatomy of Melancholy, an exhibition was scheduled soon after the gallery’s refurbishment and re-opening.
Things didn’t quite go to plan.
Soon after photography began, Hugh Adams resigned, to be replaced by (unrelated) Clive Adams.
When Michael delivered the project, he was surprised to find the gallery responded negatively to the images.
Penmaenmawr ©Michael Bennett 1979
"The gallery commissioner almost certainly expected a romanticised impression of the coast," he says. "To me, this wouldn't have been honest - I felt I needed to show exactly how it was."
The new artistic director’s solution was to commission a return to the same places in summer, in the hope that the show would be more upbeat.
Summer in the resorts brought more people but no fundamental change in character.
Fearful that the finished exhibition would be a catastrophe, Adams asked amateur photographers to exhibit their own work alongside Bennett’s, to counter its perceived pessimism. Renamed The Road to Barmouth, the exhibition opened in 1980. Following hostile local newspaper reviews, on closure it was dismantled and then forgotten for nearly 40 years.
Rhyl ©Michael Bennett 1979
RESTORED AND PUBLISHED IN FULL FOR THE FIRST TIME
The project would have stayed out of sight forever had it not been for Val Williams and Karen Shepherdson, curators of Seaside Photographed, an exhibition first seen at the Turner Contemporary Museum, Margate in 2019. Following a public call for submissions, Bennett sent images from the North Wales project.
Llandudno Library ©Michael Bennett 1979
Ten pictures were selected and shown as part of the first photographic show staged by The Turner Contemporary, and were included in the accompanying Thames & Hudson book, alongside works by Jane Bown, Martin Parr and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The original film negatives were digitised, restored and re-mastered for this book.
Following renewed interest, in late 2020 the project was published in a dedicated book for the first time. Many images had never been seen before. The first signed limited edition sold out nearly instantly. A second signed edition was available from 20th January 2020. The book is now in its 5th print run and can be purchased from Cow On The Roof Press HERE
Llandudno Pier (closing time) ©Michael Bennett 1979
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Self-taught in photography, in 1976 Bennett created an intimate project documenting his own family, first seen at the Impressions Gallery of Photography, York. The Family toured England, was seen at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, and later made into a BBC Arena film.
The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Arts Council of Great Britain acquired work from The Family for their permanent collections.
He has worked for The Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The BBC, The Financial Times, BBC World Service, New Society, and The New Statesman, and had a long association with the satirical magazine Private Eye.
A number of Bennett’s portraits of prominent British people commissioned by The Independent are in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
London’s Victoria & Albert Museum acquired the complete Family project, adding to the V&A’s collection of Bennett’s work, which includes other pictures (Platelayer on Holyhead main line, 1979) from the Welsh project seen in Pier Closing Time.